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PT Why is the Jedi not being a celibate organization a problem?

Discussion in 'Prequel Trilogy' started by Thiazzi, Aug 13, 2015.

  1. only one kenobi

    only one kenobi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 18, 2012


    Yes, because I only said one thing didn't I. I only said it didn't really match up with what was shown in the OT? Actually no, I also said....the rule seems not to have been an issue for a thousand years or generations (depending on which you prefer) and only now is it challenged? Does that seem likely? Does that seem a reasonable idea? Is marriage the only form of attachment? (think about that. If Padmé and Anakin hadn't married but retained their feelings for each other....would that have made a difference?). You can't legislate emotions, you can only teach how to cope with them.
     
  2. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    Except how in the world do you know that?

    How do you know that the rule HASN'T been challenged before. You don't.

    Other Jedi may have left the Order. The Order may have reformed.

    Moreover, the Jedi make a BIG deal about Anakin being too old to train -- his circumstances were very, very unusual and so of course he was going to run into issues that the overwhelming majority of Jedi do not.

    Marriage isn't the only form of attachment. I don't know where I said it was? I just said marriage is inherently possessive and thus inherently against the Jedi Code. That doesn't preclude other forms of attachment from existing.

    But it's been proven that growing up in a communal setting, with rotating caretakers, greatly blunts the formation of attachments. Which is a big reason why Anakin, who had a strong (and necessary) attachment to his mother, ran into so much trouble.
     
  3. only one kenobi

    only one kenobi Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 18, 2012

    But..in ROTS Obi-Wan clearly demonstrates his attachment to Anakin.

    "You were my brother. I loved you"

    he even asked Yoda not to send him after Anakin. Yet Obi-Wan dealt with that attachment. It pained him but he put it into perspective within the circumstance he found himself in.

    I am not accusing you of defining attachment as, narrowly, marriage; I am accusing Lucas of doing so, within an ill-considered plot device.

    You ask..how do we know it has never been an issue before? Well, maybe because no-one questions whether Anakin is secretly married (as if the marriage itself is an issue....is not Anakin's emotional state a more pressing issue?). No-one seems in the least concerned that Anakin clearly had shown attachment issues and yet they seem suddenly to have 'gone away'? You'd think if it had been an issue before that....they may have been a little wary? If it had been an issue before, but the rule existed still....then why did the Jedi change their opinion on the matter after this challenge to it?

    It is a nonsense.
     
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  4. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    The Jedi forbid attachment to prevent it from interfering with duty. Obi-Wan does his duty and confronts Anakin (you can argue that he should have killed him but, at least in the film, Anakin was basically a dead man when Obi-Wan left and Palpatine didn't arrive until later).

    Obi-Wan isn't perfect. He isn't the perfect Jedi. And attachment, in and of itself, is not an inherently bad thing -- Luke proves that.

    The reason the Jedi Order have this rule, though, is because they can easily see the potential for attachment clouding a person's judgement. Which it does.

    The Jedi Order in the PT is not meant to be perfect. Do you know of any single religious order that has a perfect doctrine? The Jedi of the PT are meant to be flawed. I'd argue the whole point of it is that their doctrine is too extreme but that Anakin himself is another extreme and that it is Luke who reconciles the two. Obi-Wan came close, but he still lived/grew up in the old Jedi Order.

    As for concerns regarding Anakin, you have to remember that the Jedi don't have a frame of reference to understand him from -- none of them knew their mothers or grew up in a situation similar to his. They won't as readily identify the problems he's facing because they have no familiarity with them. And, don't' forget, that once Anakin gets married, the Jedi are at war, which means they are going to be paying far, far less individual attention to him.

    And consider the effects that Anakin's attachment issues had -- Palpatine preying on them brought down the Republic and the Jedi Order. Previous issues with this rule might have simply led to a few people leaving or some minor reforms being made. But the Jedi Order being almost completely destroyed? THAT is going to lead to a lot of soul-searching. For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction.
     
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  5. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    About the marriage ban.

    Based on some EU, which might not be canon anymore, this rule was a pretty recent thing.
    It was put in place about 1000 years ago. Prior to that, Jedi were allowed to marry and have children. Some did, others did not.

    Why this rule was put in place, as I understand it, was that those that married and had children ran a greater risk of turning.
    So far from every Jedi that married fell but there was a greater probability of them falling.
    So marriages were banned.

    Understandable in some ways but it also seems to say "We don't trust you to handle these feelings so we are going to ensure you don't experience them."

    What I never understood was how the Jedi could permit a Jedi to leave the order and get married.
    A Jedi don't loose his or her powers when they quit the order. If having a mate and children increases the risk of turning then why would an Ex-Jedi be immune to this? They wouldn't.

    What did the OT say about this?
    Not much but take what Obi-Wan says in ANH:
    "Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough..."

    If we take this line at face value, then it seems that Luke's father talked to Obi-Wan about his son and that he wanted to pass his lightsabre to him. To me, this does not suggest that having a wife and children was forbidden. If it was, why would Luke's father talk so openly about it?
    The earlier drafts of ANH had Jedi families, Jedi who were father and son and I never got the impression that this was bad or forbidden in any way.

    So only one Kenobi has a point in that the marriage ban and the ban of contact between parents and Jedi children was in part put in to act as motivations for Anakin's turn. He is separated from his mother at a sensitive age and then not allowed any contact with her. He loves Padme but has to hide it.

    @PiettsHat
    I totally agree with this. The Jedi didn't fully understand Anakin's feelings or why he missed his mother because they had never really experienced those feelings. Either from a loving parent or by being a parent.
    They expected him to simply get rid of them, but he couldn't and hid them instead.

    But if we take this to an extreme, a Jedi is put into a position of saving one Jedi that they know well or two random strangers. Is two lives more important than one? If so, the Jedi should not hesitate and should leave his/her Jedi friend to die.
    Would the Jedi be able to do this though?
    If the Jedi saves their friend instead, is that attachment?

    I agree with this too. To me, the Jedi Order seemed dogmatic, rigid and inflexible. They bowed to the letter of the code but had forgotten the heart of the code. They had isolated themselves too much, become too afraid of emotions and tried to suppress them instead of dealing with them.
    With Anakin this backfired terribly which he certainly is to blame for but the Jedi didn't really help.
    Luke was able to have feelings and attachments but he also learned not to be a slave to them.

    Bye for now.
    Old Stoneface
     
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  6. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    My argument though is that the Jedi already took this to an extreme. I can understand wanting to prohibit marriage, for example, because it is by its nature possessive. But I don't think attachment as a whole is necessarily a negative thing. I think Luke proved that. I think that attachments help people to stay grounded and allowing the Jedi to form attachments would help them to stay in touch with the common people more. One problem with the PT Jedi was that they were too secluded and cloistered, IMO.

    The problem with attachment (as we see with Anakin) is that it can interfere with duty -- where Anakin would have let Dooku escape in order to go back for Padmé or when he was so enraged that he charged Dooku instead of not letting his feelings get in the way and working with Obi-Wan.

    In regards to the two strangers vs one Jedi, I would argue that YES, the Jedi have a duty to save those people first (unless there's a larger group in immediate danger that needs them). A Jedi's duty is to serve and protect the people of the Republic.

    Yep -- I agree. I don't think the Jedi are bad people or that their rules were created and imposed in order to be restrictive. But I think the rules are the result of finding a system that worked and then holding onto it to an extreme level because of the initial success. The Jedi didn't adapt to Anakin's circumstances and they didn't adapt to the changing situation with the Senate and the people of the Republic. Not because they were cruel or uncaring but because they had gotten stuck in a rut, for lack of a better phrase. And Palpatine capitalized on that. Luke came in with no such traditions and preconceptions and thus was able to achieve the balance they sought.
     
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  7. Samuel Vimes

    Samuel Vimes Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    But take Yoda in AotC, he saves Obi-Wan and Anakin at the expense of letting Dooku escape.
    Yoda knew the stakes, he said that if Dooku escapes then the war will spread.
    So he saves two lives at the expense of millions.

    Bye for now.
    Mr "Insert-Name-Here."
     
  8. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    Yep - because Yoda's not perfect. It's incredibly difficult to sacrifice people you care about for the greater good. I'm sure Yoda could rationalize it to himself -- that he and Dooku were at a standstill, Yoda couldn't stop him, and there was thus no point in letting Obi-Wan and Anakin die when he wouldn't be able to stop Dooku anyway -- but attachments can be powerful motivators.

    Or maybe he thought saving the Chosen One was more important? At this point I'm speculating but I think it just goes to show that the Jedi had become too extreme in their position. Even the best of us can't always live up to our ideals.

    Should a soldier sacrifice his buddy to protect two civilians? Ideally, yes, that's the job of soldiers. But would I blame him or think less of him if he didn't? No, not at all.
     
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  9. Obi-John Kenobi

    Obi-John Kenobi Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Oct 30, 2012
    This is more the discussion that should be had on this issue. I think a lot of people desperately want this "rule" to make sense and thus go into wild contortions to have it fit. Others see it as one of the (many) reasons the Jedi sorta lost touch and brought about their own downfall.

    Me? I think it's a little of both. I do think think the rule makes sense that Marriage= responsibility that the Jedi are not able to give attention to properly. Also a Jedi less "stable" than the average, could find themselves in danger of "attachment" given the situation. (I.E. the aforementioned "Put the ship down!" scene)

    On the other hand, it's almost impossible to forego attachments entirely. The aforementioned example with Yoda saving Obi-Wan & Anakin, or better yet, Obi-Wan taking on Maul. You don't think Obi wanted to take Maul's head off? You could read it all over his face. Is that not "revenge"? A path to the Dark Side?

    It's "inhuman" to think the Jedi don't feel as "normal" people do. And to some extent I think the Jedi train you how to deal with that. But it becomes so "unnatural" in their rigid rules as to be absurd. Take the Jedi rules on children never knowing their parents. That's another rule so rigid as to be absurd. But at the same time, it makes sense "in theory". So it just seems to me the Jedi had a sort of overzealous "Let's err on the side of caution" approach to these things, but many posters seem to take the stance that these rules are "one size, fits all" in their application.(or should be.)
     
  10. darth-sinister

    darth-sinister Manager Emeritus star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2001

    Who said that it hadn't been challenged before? There were twenty Jedi who left the Order. One of whom has been officially confirmed as becoming a Sith, so his reasons are known. The other nineteen's reasons for quitting aren't well known. Attachment in general is forbidden and part of that attachment is creating a family intentionally like Anakin attempts to. The Jedi do teach their members how to cope, but it is up to those Jedi to actually put it into practice.

    Also, in TPM, when Qui-gon asks about Anakin's father, there is an implication that he suspects that it might have been a Jedi. As to how it was in the OT, nothing was ever said in the films itself about the subject. It was left open enough in the end, but the issues of attachments were present in the OT. That's part of the reason Lucas modeled Anakin's visions of Shmi and his return to Tatooine, after Luke's visions of Han and Leia and his trip to Bespin. He was creating a parallel.

    It should be noted that Lucas went back and forth on the ideas of marriage and families in his scripts. In the first draft of ANH, General Skywalker is upset at the knowledge that Annikin was fooling around with a female aide. He uses his lasersword on him to test the boy's reflexes and skills. Afterwards, he gives his assessment.

    GENERAL SKYWALKER: "You are trained well, but remember, a JEDI must be single-minded, a discipline your father obviously never learned, hence your existence. Clean yourself up. Discipline is essential. Your mind must follow the way of the BENDU."

    However with the second draft, families were part of the norm. It is unclear in the third draft if this was still true, or if it was a rarity. This seemed to continue on into ROTJ, though Lucas and/or Kasdan dropped the grandfather reference. But in the story meetings, Lucas doesn't say one way or another if it was common for the Jedi to be married.

    The novelization did address that Obi-wan had realized towards the end of the duel that he had developed an attachment to Anakin, which was why he had turned a blind eye to his actions before Order 66. And why he was against fighting him. In that moment, he realizes that he needs to let go of Anakin and he does.

    True and later on, Yoda is faced with a similar scenario at the conclusion of his training on Moraband, when he has to choose between saving Anakin and stopping Sidious.

    SIDIOUS: "Can you save him? Why not let him go? Let him die, and you can stop all that I will do."

    YODA: "No! The future is not yours yet. Tempted I will not be. Sacrifice all I am ready to do."

    Yoda was then told that he has passed the tests despite Palpatine's attempts to break him. Though the war started, Yoda's choice to save Anakin and Obi-wan was right in the end. They might have removed Dooku, but Palpatine had enough in place to carry on without him.
     
  11. PMT99

    PMT99 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 23, 2000
    Why is it a problem that the Jedi order isn't a celibate organization? It goes against everything Yoda was preaching throughout the series. When he says things like, "Adventure... heh. Excitement.... heh. A Jedi craves not these things", a lot of people would use those 2 words to describe sex. It can bring out a whole variety of emotions which is too dangerous for a Jedi because it puts them in danger of being corrupted by the dark side. This brings me to another Yoda quote where he states, "Attachment leads to jealousy. The shadow of greed, that is" where if a Jedi develops feelings for someone and anything happens to that person whether if its life-threatening or that person commits infidelity, that Jedi will go to extreme lengths to keep that person in their lives (Anakin being the prime example). Lastly, there's the whole "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering" part which sums up what will happen if a Jedi loses someone they care about. They will go mad and destroy everyone and everything they stood for which will transform that Jedi into a Sith lord and Yoda spent 800 years using methods to insure that no Jedi endanger themselves of being tempted by the dark side. Even if that means not allowing any Jedi to have any form of contact with anyone outside of the Jedi temple, professional or sexual.
     
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  12. anakinfansince1983

    anakinfansince1983 Skywalker Saga/LFL/YJCC Manager star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2011
    We've already addressed that.

    If sex is just physical satisfaction--not "adventure," not "excitement," not "feelings", and certainly not "attachment"--there is no reason whatsoever to ban it.

    There is no need for anyone here to pretend to speak for "everyone" or "most people" and assume that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have sex without attachment, or passion that supersedes rational thought. There are many, many people in our world who are able to keep their priorities in order and not allow passion to surpass those priorities, and there are no trained Jedi in our world.

    A Jedi not craving "adventure" and "excitement" does not mean the Jedi never has any fun or relaxation at all. ;)
     
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  13. Tosche_Station

    Tosche_Station Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2015
    This:

    only one kenobi posted: "This rule has managed to stand unchallenged for a thousand years (or generations) without any issues and only becomes a problem now ...with Anakin."

    ....might have something to do with it.
     
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  14. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    You bolded the wrong part, Tosche. I fixed that for you. :p

    For myself, I'll just say that it's pretty clear to me that Anakin ended up having so many issues due to his unconventional background and his power -- he was a unique case that basically was only accepted due to the Chosen One prophecy but that the Jedi had no real frame of reference for how to handle. When things turned out as badly as they did, it's not at all surprising to me, therefore that they changed tactics with Luke. They didn't have the capability to raise him traditionally in the Jedi Temple and they realized that something went VERY VERY wrong with Anakin. And so they made adjustments. Not all that surprising, IMO.
     
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  15. Tosche_Station

    Tosche_Station Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2015
    I think that's an even bigger problem than the "no marriage/attachments" rule...
     
  16. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    Perhaps. I quite like it, though not everyone does. But I think we may be getting a tad bit off topic in regards to the Jedi and celibacy. :p
     
  17. PMT99

    PMT99 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 23, 2000
    But physical satisfaction is just the result of fulfilling someone's greed which derives from attachment. If all Jedi were allowed to have casual sex, then they will want more to the point where they lose sight of their principles and become sexual predators. Yoda taught his Jedi brethren to respect all life and letting them have sex would be showing a sign of disrespect.
     
  18. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    wat

    No. Seriously. Dude…what are you suggesting? That people who indulge in casual sex will become greedy and turn into sexual predators. Holy crap, no. Some people just like sex.

    Sex isn't a sign of disrespect of life. Sex is how new life is created.
     
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  19. Thiazzi

    Thiazzi Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 27, 2015

    Uh, what? That's your view. The Jedi aren't joyless bastards, geeze.
     
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  20. Tosche_Station

    Tosche_Station Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2015
    Well, I happen to think that maybe the Chosen One prophecy is what's "driving this train", so to speak......or, perhaps the real issue is LUCAS'S 'attachment' to the character of Anakin?
     
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  21. PMT99

    PMT99 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Nov 23, 2000
    It's also how people sometimes go too far and it could lead to harassment and rape. That's the kind of disrespect I'm talking about.


    They're not horny degenerates, either.
     
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  22. Thiazzi

    Thiazzi Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 27, 2015

    Having casual sex doesn't make one a degenerate. It's a choice, and the Jedi are fully capable of making it. What are you stuck in, the 50's?
     
  23. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011
    Yeah but now we're getting into speculation about Lucas's motives and I can't really speak to that since I'm not him (oh what I would do with those billions…). I mean, I can tell you what I think: I think the Chosen One prophecy was a pretty cool bit of misdirection for new viewers and also helped to frame Anakin opposed to Luke -- as someone who was essentially forced into a slot versus someone who took it up freely. And that the Chosen One prophecy is pretty cool because it subverts a lot of the traditional tropes of such a prophecy (by having Anakin act largely as an antagonist).

    I don't think the idea of detachment was borne from the prophecy -- rather, I think it reflects the incorporation of some aspects of Eastern philosophy along with Western monastic orders. That's my two cents.
     
  24. PiettsHat

    PiettsHat Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 1, 2011

    I hate to break it to you but unless they're asexual…they're horny. A sex drive is basically a normal aspect of the human condition. Biologically programmed and all that. The urge to procreate is pretty central to a species' continuation.

    As for "degenerates" or "an immoral or corrupt person" consenting sexual activity by adults in a stable/sane/rational frame of mind is hardly immoral or corrupt. It hurts no one.
     
  25. Tosche_Station

    Tosche_Station Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 9, 2015
    I think 'misdirection' sums it up for the Chosen One prophecy.
     
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